GALLERY ONE
4-19 August 2017
Landscaping
Amala Groom
Kim Mahood
Nicole Monks
Katya Petetskaya
Douglas Schofield
Peter Sharp
Kristel Smit
Artist Talks: Saturday 19 August, 3-5pm
Landscaping brings together the work of seven artists: Amala Groom, Kim Mahood, Nicole Monks, Katya Petetskaya, Douglas Schofield, Peter Sharp and Kristel Smits. Normally understood as a process whereby land is physically modified according to an aesthetic schema, landscaping, in this exhibition, becomes a way of seeing, being and responding. The aim is to bring a variety of perspectives into dialogue, whether they are driven by formal considerations and/or political and cultural imperatives.
Image: Amala Groom, Portrait of a Woman, 2015, Epsom pigment print on Ilford Gallerie gloss 310gsm, ed 1/10 + 1AP. Image: Liz Warning
Acknowledgment of Country
The directors of Airspace Projects would like to acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land on which AirSpace Projects stands today, the Gadigal and Wangal people of the Eora Nation. We would like to pay our respects to their Elders, past and present. We would also like to acknowledge all other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who come to the gallery to participate in its program of exhibitions and events.
Artist Statements
Amala Groom
Portrait of a Woman, 2015, Epsom pigment print on Ilford Gallerie gloss 310gsm, edition 1/10 + 1AP. Image Liz Warning.
Price: $450 unframed $650 framed
Amala Groom is a Wiradjuri conceptual artist whose practice, as the performance of her cultural sovereignty, is informed and driven by First Nations epistemologies, ontologies and methodologies. Her work, a form of passionate activism, presents acute and incisive commentary on contemporary socio-political issues. Articulated across diverse media, Groom’s work often subverts and unsettles western iconographies in order to enunciate Aboriginal stories, experiences and histories, and to interrogate and undermine the legacy of colonialism. Not wishing to create reactionary works which tacitly allow contemporary political operatives serving the colonial ideology to set her artistic agenda, Groom seeks to create works that proactively and creatively unpack and undermine the Colonial Project, the on-going philosophy of colonialism that has imperialistically subjugated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples since 1770.
Kim Mahood
The Burn, acrylic on canvas, 7 panels. Image courtesy of the artist.
$2200
Tanami Landscape, acrylic, bitumen, shellac, pigment on canvas
$880
The Road to Turkey Creek, acrylic, bitumen, shellac, pigment on canvas
SOLD
The patterns and repetitions of the desert reflect an iconography that is both elusive and persistent. My drawing and painting is a response to the country I am always trying to learn.
Kim Mahood is the author of Craft for a Dry Lake, (Random House 2000), and Position Doubtful, (Scribe 2016), which explore the relationships between Aboriginal and settler Australians, and between people, art and country in the Tanami Desert.
She has co-ordinated cultural and environmental mapping projects involving indigenous custodians, artists and scientists. She has worked in various capacities as a consultant, facilitator and writer for the Canning Stock Route art project, the Martu art project ‘We Don’t Need a Map’, and the Seven Sisters Songlines project.
Her art practice explores the interface between Aboriginal and western representations of landscape/country, and includes collaborations with the Walmajarri painter Veronica Lulu, and artist/photographer the late Pamela Lofts. These collaborations explore the complexities and differences between embodied and mediated art practices.
Nicole Monks
Measuring Culture, 2016, assorted, ground ochres, 100 x 5 x 10cm. Image courtesy of the artist.
POA
All in one time, 2016, 2 photographic scrolls, 20cm x 120cm ea, 2 x 15 x 150 x 6cm. Image courtesy of the artist.
POA
‘Measuring Culture’ and ‘All in one time’ is a continuation of Nicole Monks’ questions surrounding learned thoughts, behaviours and the ways in which indigenous and non-indigenous people, interpret visual narratives and the Australian landscape. Informed by her cross-cultural heritage, Monks is able to explore these histories through multiple viewpoints.
These works pull the viewer in and asks that they take a second look at what is being presented. In this sense, its intimacy demands that the space is interpreted through more than just sight and learned signs, but by responding emotionally, to the narratives of land, place and time. (words by Emily Sullivan)
Nicole Monks is a trans-disciplinary artist of Yamatji Wajarri, Dutch and English heritage. Living and practicing in Sydney, Monks is informed by her cross-cultural identity. A designer by trade, Monks crosses art forms to work with furniture and objects, textiles, video, installation and performance. In addition to her solo practice, Monks is also well known for her success as a collaborative artist and as founder of blackandwhite creative. In 2016, Monks won the Marika Memorial 3D Art Award at the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards in Darwin, Northern Territory, and is the recipient of the 2016 Arts NSW Design Mentorship Program. (Word by Emily Sullivan)
nicolemonks.com
Katya Petetskaya
Formation Forces no.5, 2017, synthetic polymer paint on masonite board, 635 x 435mm. Photo: Campbell Henderson
$900
Formation Forces no.7, 2017, synthetic polymer paint on masonite board, 630 x 480mm. Photo: Campbell Henderson
$900
Formation Forces no.8, 2017, synthetic polymer paint on masonite board, 635 x 435mm. Photo: Campbell Henderson
$900
Formation Forces builds upon Katya Petetskaya’s previous solo exhibition, The Spills. The Spills explored the aesthetic implications of the politics of contamination and contemporary economic imperatives through oil spill sites in different parts of the world. These sites are unique and distinctive nature-culture interactions, that are reflections of our relationship with the environment and ultimately with ourselves.
In Formation Forces she continues combining the language and materials of landscape painting, while disrupting traditional readings of this genre. The paintings are hybrid versions of landscape and abstraction. The subject matter is anthropocene landscapes and the formation forces behind them – natural environments affected by the determining geological factor of humankind. In particular, she focus on the aftermath of fugitive emissions, oil spills and other excesses resulting from the flaws in our production processes.
The works are completed in digital plein air. she retreats to digital space to inform herself about, comprehend and establish connection with prospective sites. Digital space provides experiences, perceptions and associated understanding that is different from what it could have been if experiencing the sites in actual space. An aesthetic treatment of actual space is limited and yet expanded by digital space. In digital plein air, time and space shift – economic, social, political and cultural forces take place and extend these sites beyond their geographical locations and any defined moment in time.
Douglas Schofield
Flowers that fall from the sky pile high, perfumed in pink, 2016, acrylic and oil on canvas,
60 x 50cm
Garden Spirit (2), 2016, acrylic on canvas, 45.5 x 45.5cm
Hills and Plateaus, 2016, glaze on grog raku stoneware, 40cm height
Memory of a Garden Home, 2016, acrylic and oil on canvas, 60 x 50cm
Under the pink dream tree, 2016, acrylic, spray and oil on canvas, 45.5 x 45.5cm
Douglas Schofield, Rough as Guts (Garden Potential), 2017, acrylic and spray on canvas, 91 x 91cm
Douglas Schofield’s current practice is responding to practices of gardening and the cultivation of indoor plants. These modes of engagement with Nature and landscape support ideas of the Anthropocene. In this context, questions relating to contemporary Nature are played with in Schofield’s abstract landscape work.
Peter Sharp
Bone Machine, 2013, found and painted timber with cow bone, 100 x 480 x 600cm
$5500
Level, 2014, two pieces of timber (painted), 230 x 40 x 20cm
$7000
Kristel Smits
Kristel Smits, Pool of Siloam after rain, 2017, oil on plywood, 28 x 21cm
$700
Katoomba Falls after rain, 2017, oil on plywood, 28 x 21cm
$700
Mount Solitary in afternoon light, 2017, oil on plywood, 18 x 30cm
$700
Sunset over the Blue Mountains, 2017, oil on plywood, 18 x 30cm
$700
This series, entitled Postcards from Katoomba, celebrates my love for the Blue Mountains landscape, which has recently become my new home. My move there from the city has felt like a major life change, and has brought back many memories of my family’s immigration to Australia from Europe as a child. The series references this childhood experience, shared by many travellers, of sending postcards to friends and family overseas attempting to share my new life with them, not wanting to leave them behind. It signifies how much location and landscape are part of our daily experience, to what extent they can define us and inform the way we view the world.
Kristel Smits is a landscape artist working in both drawing and painting media. Through her profession as a painting restorer she has had the opportunity to study artist’s techniques at close range, and these are incorporated into her own work both consciously and subconsciously. Her strong interest in colour symbolism means that her work is often imbued with hidden personal meanings. Kristel studied painting conservation at the University of Canberra, completing in 1995, and went on to study a Master of Arts in Painting followed by a Master of Fine Arts in Painting at the College of Fine Arts, finishing in 2010. In 2012 she travelled to Amsterdam for a 3 month artist residency at the Van Gogh Museum to study Van Gogh’s painting materials and techniques, funded by the Australia Council for the Arts. She now runs her own restoration practice and teaches art classes in Katoomba, as well as drawing and painting the local landscape.
AirSpace Projects 2014-2017 